Project Summary This proposal describes plans for the 20th IMS New Researchers Conference, an annual confer- ence organized under the auspices of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). The meeting is organized by and held for junior researchers working in the elds of Statistics and Biostatistics. The primary objective of the conference is to provide a much needed platform for interaction among new researchers. The proposed conference will take place over three days, July 26-28, 2018, at Simon Fraser University. The conference will be held immediately preceding the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM), which will take place in downtown Vancouver. Conference facilities will be provided by Simon Fraser University and housing will be provided within a short walk of the meetings. Participants will be statisticians and biostatisticians who have received their Ph.D. within the past ve years or are expecting to receive their degree within the same year. The conference eagerly seeks out participation from under-represented groups and has historically attracted a very high proportion of women (more than 50% of the participants were women last year). Each participant will present a short spotlight talk and a more detailed poster. Topics will cover a variety of areas in statistics and probability, from theory and methods to applications. In particular, statistical methodology relevant to the health and environmental sciences are covered, such as biomedical statistics, medical imaging, neuroscience, cancer data analysis, environmental statistics, epidemiology, computational statistics, bioinformatics, etc. Senior speakers will give plenary talks for inspiration and overview of various disciplines, and other senior researchers will take part in panel discussions on (i) publishing, (ii) nding collaborators in the biological sciences, (iii) bio data science for new researchers, (iv) mentoring, and (v) funding. This conference series is explicitly aimed at training the future leaders and workers of our pro- fession. The participants will be able to learn what other people at similar stages of their career are researching which is useful in broadening their views on the current trends in statistics and biostatistics. In helping to create networks of new researchers, it lays the groundwork for future collaboration and the informal exchange of ideas and knowledge. This conference has the speciality of being organized by junior researchers for junior researchers, so as to better address their own needs. As a byproduct, this also gives the members of the organizing committee experience in the many aspects of hosting a conference.